Bruce Everiss

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    • Tue Nov 13th 16:21 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      A Look Back at Zune - From the Future
      From Bruceongames:

      At the moment there are an array of portable electronic devices that people carry round with them. Most people carry a mobile phone, many carry an MP3 player, lots carry a gaming machine and quite a few carry a camera. Nowadays many of these devices are multifunction, for instance most phones incorporate a camera and play games. The problem is that they don’t do the subsidiary tasks as well as a dedicated device. But this is changing with devices like the iPhone and Sony Ericsson K850i which are as good as a dedicated devices at more than one task.

      So there is a change in philosophy as manufacturers try and make genuine multi function devices. They are going to be helped by some very important technology changes that are happening right now.

      The weakness of all portable devices is that they have to carry their own power with them. Over the years battery life has become a lot better by controlling device power usage and by improving battery energy density. We have gone from NiCad to Nicked Metal Hydride to Lithium. And the standby time on my phone has gone from one day to ten. But now we are about to have a jump in battery energy density with the use of nanotechnology. These new generation batteries will have the added advantage of charging very quickly indeed.
      There is an imminent jump in display technology. Current colour LED displays are very power inefficient. They achieve their colour by using filters so they require strong backlighting to work, which eats energy. Their complexity makes them expensive to manufacture. New polymer displays look just like a colour photograph. That moves. The colour is in the surface. They use far less power, are cheap to manufacture and, very interestingly, can be curved to follow a surface.
      Low power RISC computers were intended to do simple tasks using little power. Your car airbags use them. However ARM have made them progressively more powerful whilst continuously introducing technologies to reduce their power consumption. Now different parts of a processor run at different changing speeds (from zero) depending upon the demands placed on them. ARM processors are used in many phones and in the Nintendo DS. But they are continually evolving to be far more powerful with minimum power consumption.
      WiFi. As this rolls out around the world and as more devices incorporate it there will be a profound effect. Your pocket device, and therefore you, will be connected to the internet. The sum of all human knowledge will be in your pocket.
      Cheap memory. We are used to Moores law delivering this. The big change for portable devices is Flash memory. This has become so cheap that Apple, with their iPods, have been gradually switching from using miniature hard drives to using Flash. Future generation mobile devices will be able to put massive amounts of this memory into your pocket for very little cost and very little power usage. This really does make the UMD drive in the Sony PSP look like agricultural engineering.
      Gesture interface. We have covered this in an earlier article. Already we are seeing it in the iPhone. Basically the only conventional switch you need will be an on/off switch. The interface will be by an infinitely re-configerable touch screen(s) and an accelerometer. So your device will look completely different depending on what you are using it for and you will control it by moving, stroking and touching it.
      In this device war Sony have a massive advantage because they already make phones, cameras, MP3 players and a mobile games machine. All they have to do is overcome the internal politics to get these different divisions working together. (Something they have largely failed to do with their film and games divisions). Apple have a lot further to go in taking on board photography and gaming at a higher level. Nokia have a longer journey if one looks at their clumsy attempts at gaming thus far. It will be very interesting to see what Nintendo do with all this technology. As for Microsoft, who know where they are going with portable devices. Is Zune their first move towards another area of global domination?

      One thing that should be very obvious here is that mobile gaming has the potential to be far bigger than home gaming. Because everyone will be carrying a powerful gaming machine around with them all the time. A gaming machine that is connected to the internet.

      View article »
    • Tue Nov 13th 06:56 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Killing Off the Original Xbox: A Big Microsoft Mistake
      Yes.
      The 360 is simple and cheap to produce and will become substantially cheaper to build over the years.
      Microsoft have a massive advantage with Live. If they increased the social networking elements this would really snowball.
      They just outsold the PS3 in Japan for the first time ever.
      The stream of AAA exclusives gives them growing competetive advantage. There is still no good reason to buy a PS3.
      The Wii will be found out by it's lack of power, lack of HDTV support and an online network to compete with Live.
      Game publishers are deserting the 360 and having problems getting sales from Wii games. The 360 has become the platform of choice to develop for.
      View article »
    • Sun Nov 11th 05:48 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Killing Off the Original Xbox: A Big Microsoft Mistake
      I think it is pretty certain that Microsoft will keep the 360 running alongside it's successor. This will give them a 2 product overlapping generations lineup, just like Sony. Thus maximising profit from a platform over a 10+ year life and having presence in world markets at two pricepoints.
      View article »
    • Sun Nov 11th 05:48 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Killing Off the Original Xbox: A Big Microsoft Mistake
      I think it is pretty certain that Microsoft will keep the 360 running alongside it's successor. This will give them a 2 product overlapping generations lineup, just like Sony. Thus maximising profit from a platform over a 10+ year life and having presence in world markets at two pricepoints.
      View article »
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